Running on Fumes
by Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: Everything was eaten away, and perhaps it was as it should've been for a family that bore this name.


Beatrice was alone in the house with the woman. The woman resembled her mother, raising her hands languidly, the stiff fingers pressing against the piano keys. It was like a body had been pulled out of the grave and forced on marionette strings. It didn't resemble a melody of any sort, a broken up toy, and Beatrice ran out before any rational thought could take over.

She stayed in the neighboring woods even when it got dark. She stayed quiet even when there were voices calling for her, burrowed herself deeper into the concealing mud.

Beatrice was found, and got the whipping of a lifetime. She was sent to bed without anything to soothe the welts on her back and she fell asleep wishing that all belts were taken up and burned forever.

Finally, there was enough money for a vacation, a good one. It should've been expected, a continuous ordeal, but as it was Beatrice would take this. The beachside village was quaint (_poor_) and in a way was a reminder of how Beatrice's life could be much worse.

She made Bojack walk, and luckily for the boy he'd learned to keep his mouth shut about being tired. As soon as a child walked on his own, it would be that way until he was in the ground.

There were a few drinks in her and Butterscotch and he must've been drunk because he dared to reach for her hand. She allowed herself a glimpse back into their declarations about San Francisco, and took the calloused hand. There were dreams of grandeur and as they neared the red awnings, with gold paper roses tied around the metal bars, of the hotel she was beginning to believe in them again.

A few months before Crackerjack was sent overseas to become a hero, there was a party. Beatrice was given a dress that was entirely too itchy and stuffy and her mother, true mother, chided her. There was always suffering in fashion, and Beatrice was extraordinarily lucky that corsets had fallen out of vogue.

She was seated with the ladies, but would lean backwards to hear what the gentlemen were discussing. Their conversations weren't any less boring, and Beatrice opted to study their faces instead.

There was one gentleman who detailed a scandal about his daughter. Beatrice hadn't seen the pork tapeworm's daughter at this party. She was a wild, rebellious sort; the one that smoked cigarettes and drank beer like it was water. Beatrice rather liked her.

The gentleman said that there was a procedure for his Dolores, and now she was as dutiful as a servant. There was some gleam in his eyes that made Beatrice grit her teeth for reasons she couldn't articulate. Beatrice couldn't kick the gentleman so she opted for a small one to the table leg.

There were times that Beatrice thought that Bojack was similar to the product of that horrible movie. _Roseanne's Baby_, evil that wormed into one's brain. He was nothing more than a parasite.

After his funeral, Beatrice felt drained. The mutual oppressive air vanished, the stale air of the house a replacement. They'd spent their entire lives pushing and prodding, tearing at each other, reaching to pull out squirming entrails and lungs coated with black tar.

Now, there was nothing left to push against.

It was a controversy to be sure, something that Beatrice secretly read before it was produced into a movie; a horrendous product from Hollywood, a futile attempt that aimed to shake foundations that were forged with steel.

There was a small part in Beatrice that reveled in the story of _Rosemary's Baby_. Even domesticity, what was expected of her, couldn't prevent evil from slithering in.

There was a lot of screaming, and the cheetah fled from their room rather quickly. She'd forgotten a high heeled shoe and Beatrice struck Butterscotch with it; she tried to make the pointy end drive into his eye.

When he deflected the attack with a lamp, the shards scattered across her shoes. Beatrice kicked them at him, hoping they would stick into his legs.

She stalked to the chairs for another attack. Bojack was under the table, his arms wrapped around his head and he was too far away for Beatrice to make the effort to kick at him.

She lunged at Butterscotch with the chair, and it broke against the wall. Beatrice wound up her hand and slapped him across the face, her nails grazing his eye.

She left the hotel room, slammed the door so hard that the walls shook, and found herself outside. She grabbed one of the gold, paper roses and tore it to shreds.

There was a new secretary, a secretarybird that Beatrice saw when she'd come into Butterscotch's office to announce that she hid his heart pills again. The secretary was young, pretty, an intern visiting from Japan. Beatrice remembered a quote about the red beaches of Normandy and kept in the words that she would regale to her high society friends sometime later in the week.

Beatrice watched from the panel window as Butterscotch walked behind the secretary, his hands on her shoulders and reaching down lower.

Beatrice waited for the reciprocal moment that never came; the secretary slammed the chair into his chest. She did not yell, she strode to the other side of the desk. Beatrice could hear their muffled conversation, and the secretary broke the desk with her leg. A finality that spelled what would happen to Butterscotch if he didn't cease.

The secretary left with her head held high. Butterscotch looked rather like a little child that was told he couldn't have ice cream for dinner.

Beatrice allowed herself to feel some pride and respect for that secretary. She did what Butterscotch's parents ought to have done fifty years ago; his unknown mother dragging him to his father to be disciplined with the thinnest belt the world had to offer.

There was a piano, a song in her head. But it was too painful, too joyful, and it burned away into ashes.

**A/N: Originally posted on AO3 on May 28 2018**


End file.
